U.S., North Korea to meet on October 24-25 in Geneva (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The United States and North Korea will meet on Monday and Tuesday in Geneva, the U.S. State Department said, in a sign Washington may be looking to resume wider talks on ending the North's nuclear programs.

The meeting -- the second such bilateral talks in four months -- will take place amid speculation that the Obama administration may want to revive talks that collapsed in late 2008 on trying to end North Korea's nuclear programs.

"This is a continuation of the exploratory meetings to determine if North Korea is prepared to fulfill its commitments under the 2005 joint statement of the six-party talks and its nuclear ... international obligations as well as take concrete steps toward denuclearization," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.

Under the September 2005 deal, the North agreed to abandon its nuclear programs in exchange for economic and diplomatic incentives to be provided by other parties in the talks -- China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. That agreement has since unraveled.

U.S. President Barack Obama's envoy for North Korea policy, Stephen Bosworth, will step down after the Geneva talks and will be replaced by veteran U.S. diplomat Glyn Davies.

Bosworth, who remained dean of Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy while carrying out his North Korea work, and Davies, U.S. envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, will both attend the Geneva talks.

The North has twice conducted nuclear tests and its nuclear expertise is seen by Washington as a direct threat to U.S. allies South Korea and Japan as well as to the security of the wider Asia-Pacific region.

Obama came into office looking to pick up talks with the North on carrying out a 2005 multilateral aid-for-disarmament agreement.

However, after North Korea's second nuclear test took place in 2009, the Obama administration's enthusiasm for talks appeared to wane and it has adopted what is widely seen as a policy of "strategic patience" -- waiting to see if Pyongyang might be willing to come back to the negotiating table.

It was not immediately clear whether the United States will seek to revive the six-party format for future talks on ending North Korea's nuclear programs or whether it may form another diplomatic group.

(Editing by Sandra Maler and Bill Trott)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/nkorea/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111019/pl_nm/us_korea_north_usa

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